FIGS. 1, 2A and 2B illustrate a configuration of a capacitive touch panel described in Japanese Patent Application Laid Open No. 2017-103317 (published on Jun. 8, 2017) as an example of conventional touch panels of this type. The touch panel comprises a first conductor layer, an insulating layer, a second conductor layer, and a protective coating which are stacked in this order on a transparent substrate 10. An area enclosed in a rectangular frame in FIG. 1 is a sensor region 20 in which sensor electrodes are located. Details of the sensor electrodes are omitted from FIG. 1.
The sensor electrodes include first and second sensor electrodes. The first sensor electrode is formed in a first conductor layer and the second sensor electrode is formed in a second conductor layer.
As illustrated in FIG. 2A, the first sensor electrode 30 comprises a plurality of electrode rows 33 parallelly arranged in a Y direction parallel to the short side 22 of the sensor region 20, where each of the electrode rows 33 is made up of a plurality of island-like electrodes 31 arranged in a X direction parallel to the long side 21 of the sensor region 20 and linked with one another through linkage parts 32.
As illustrated in FIG. 2B, the second sensor electrode 40 comprises a plurality of electrode rows 43 parallelly arranged in the X direction, where each of the electrode rows 43 is made up of a plurality of island-like electrodes 41 arranged in the Y direction and linked with one another through linkage parts 42.
Each of the first sensor electrode 30 and the second sensor electrode 40 is formed of a mesh of fine lines, the electrode rows 33 and the electrode rows 43 intersect each other and are insulated from each other, and the linkage parts 32 and 42 are positioned in locations that coincide with each other.
Second leads 51 are extended from both ends of each electrode row 33 of the first sensor electrode 30 in the X direction and first leads 52 are extended from one end of each electrode row 43 of the second sensor electrode 40 in the Y direction. The first leads 52 and the second leads 51 each arranged in an array and extended from the sensor region 20 other than the first and second leads 52, 51 at both ends of each array are omitted from FIG. 1.
Terminal parts 53 are arranged and formed in a center portion of one of the long sides of the rectangular transparent substrate 10 and the first and second leads 52, 51 extend and are connected to each terminal part 53. Ground wirings 54 formed around the transparent substrate 10 to enclose the sensor region 20, the first leads 52 and the second leads 51 are also connected to the terminal parts 53.
The first leads 52, the second leads 51 and the terminal parts 53 are formed in the first conductor layer and the ground wirings 54 are formed in both of the first and second conductor layers.
The first and second conductor layers which have the configuration described above are formed by gravure offset printing using conductive ink containing conductive particles such as silver particles in this example.